1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a registration method for a biometrics authentication system, a biometrics authentication system, and a program for same, which uses biometrics features which are a portion of the human body to authenticate individuals, and in particular relates to a registration method for a biometrics authentication system, a biometrics authentication system, and a program for same to authenticate individuals by verification detected biometrics information against registered biometrics information.
2. Description of the Related Art
There exist numerous features of the human body enabling identification of individuals, among them fingerprints, palm prints, palm types, iris patterns, retina features, blood vessel patterns, facial features, voiceprints, manners of walking, the concha of the ear, DNA, and similar. Advances in biometrics technology in recent years have been accompanied by various proposals of devices for identification of such biometrics features which are a portion of the human body, to authenticate individuals.
Since the simultaneous multiple terror attacks of September 2001, biometric authentication (fingerprint and facial authentication) has been adopted in ports and other immigration points in the U.S., and there has been worldwide interest in biometric authentication methods as means of confirming the identity of individuals with high security. In financial institutions also, biometric authentication is being studied as new means for authenticating individuals, as countermeasures to illicit withdrawal of funds made possible by theft of bankbooks and cash cards and by forgery of seals and cards, and to preclude civil suits brought against financial institutions by the victims of such crimes.
In registration of such biometrics information, methods of registration of fingerprint data have been proposed which entail detection of fingerprint data a plurality of times, extraction of common characteristic data from the plurality of sets of fingerprint data, and registration of the common characteristic data (see for example Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 01-263775 and Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 11-232459). By means of these methods, effects on registered data of changes in fingerprint shapes due to detection noise and differences in finger pressure can be prevented.
In conventional methods for registration of biometrics information, in light of the fact that exactly the same biometrics characteristic data may not be obtained each time biometrics information is detected and registered, the biometrics characteristic data is detected a plurality of times, only the common data is extracted from the plurality of sets of characteristic data, and a single biometrics characteristic data set is registered, so as to exclude noise due to the detection device and the effect of the state at the time of detection.
However, in conventional methods in which common data is extracted and registered, differences in the noise of the biometrics detection device and in the detection state at the time of biometrics detection can be excluded; but registration of common data means that there is not complete coincidence with the individual biometrics characteristic data sets actually obtained, and there is the possibility that the amount of characteristic data is different from the characteristic detection data amount. Hence when verifying registered data against verification data at the time of authentication, accurate verification may not be possible.
Further, because measurements are made of a living entity, changes due to physical condition must be taken into account, and when common data is registered, if there is a change in physical condition compared with that at the time of registration, during authentication it may be difficult to authenticate the individual even though the individual is in fact the same person, so that various problems may arise. For example, in fingerprint authentication, verification rates will differ when the fingers are damp and when the fingers are dry.